Queen & Adam Lambert at Nottingham Motorpoint Arena

I’ve been a massive Queen fan since I was 10 or 11. I learned to love them listening to my dad’s Greatest Hits album and a copy of The Works we borrowed from the library. It wasn’t long before I bought their back catalogue for myself, falling in love with classic albums like A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races.

By the time I was old enough to go to concerts, Queen had already stopped touring and Freddie Mercury was already very ill with AIDS (although it was only announced that he was ill just before his death). But I was lucky enough to go to the Freddie Mercury Tribute at Wembley Stadium when I was 18, which was an amazing experience.

In recent years, I’d been vaguely aware that Brian May and Roger Taylor were touring with a guy called Adam Lambert on vocals. I was even more vaguely aware that Adam Lambert was something to do with American Idol. When I saw they were touring in December, I knew I had to go. As it happens, the venue closest to home was the Nottingham Motorpoint Arena. I went to university in Nottingham, met my husband there and spent five years living there. But I was never particularly happy in Nottingham and hadn’t been back for about 20 years.

The arena is big, but not the biggest. We had standing tickets and were probably stood about two-thirds of the way back. I’d have liked to have been further forward, but we didn’t arrive early enough! I couldn’t really see the stage at all, so thank goodness for the big screen at the top.

As Queen came onto the stage, an image of the big statue from the cover of News of the World seemed to smash the stage to pieces. It was the start of an incredible light show which lasted the full two hours.

Queen opened with Hammer to Fall, which I understand from my extensive listening of live albums, is a classic Queen opener. Then it was on to the craziness of Stone Cold Crazy and Hammer to Fall. This was followed by Another One Bites the Dust and Fat Bottomed Girls.

Then it was onto the first of Adam Lambert’s fmany costume changes – into a lavish purple suit and sparkly heeled purple boots, to sing Killer Queen, while sitting on the head of the stone statue. Adam Lambert isn’t Freddie Mercury, he is very much his own person and he brings his own thing to Queen songs, but I can safely say that was pretty much the campest thing I had ever seen.

After a few songs, we discovered that the stage had a catwalk, which brought Brian May and Adam Lambert a lot closer to us. At one point, an extra drum kit even appeared there, so Roger Taylor could get up close and personal with the audience too.

The lighting and effects were amazing throughout and there was very little else in terms of staging and props, but following Don’t Stop Me Now, a very pink tricycle covered in flowers appeared for Adam Lambert to ride while singing I Want to Ride My Bicycle. This moved swiftly into I’m in Love with My Car, which was originally sung by Roger rather than Freddie and he did the honours at the concert (while Adam went off to change into some zipped trousers and a silver top). This also moved very swiftly on into Get Down, Make Love before I Want it All. I Want it All was the newest track they played, the only track from their penultimate album, The Miracle.

Sadly they played nothing at all from their final studio album with Freddie, Innuendo. Maybe the memories were just too hard to deal with or maybe they had just never played them live, for obvious reasons.

Then came the most beautiful moment of the concert. Brian May sat on a chair on the catwalk bit of the stage and sang Love of My Life. Which is beautiful enough in itself. Towards the end, Freddie appeared on screen singing along with him and it was as though they reached out to touch each other’s hands. The image was so clear, it really felt like Freddie was still there, even though in reality he has been gone for far longer than he was a part of Queen.

The pace picked up again with Somebody to Love and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Brian May got to do one of his classic guitar solos and Roger Taylor had a drum battle with Tyler Warren, who provided extra drums and percussion for the show. He is also a member of Queen tribute act The Queen Extravaganza.

I wondered who would sing David Bowie’s part on Under Pressure. It was Roger Taylor of course, who still has a good rock voice despite his age. My memory is failing me a bit, but I’m pretty sure Brian May took the lead vocals on A Kind of Magic. But Adam was back for I Want to Break Free and sadly Roger didn’t get his schoolgirl outfit out. But he probably wouldn’t rock the look quite so well nearly 35 years on.

Who Wants to Live Forever was beautiful and accompanied by the most stunning laser show. The concert ended with Radio GaGa, complete with the whole audience doing the handclap from the video, and, of course Bohemian Rhapsody. It started with a beautiful solo from Adam before the four original band members appeared from the video to sing ‘I see a little silhouette of a man… ‘ It was just the right mix of old and new to get the elderly audience members going crazy (it’s not often a woman of my age finds herself being ‘young’ at a concert).

For the encore, Freddie was back on the screen in his classic yellow jacket, doing his ‘Day-oh’ for the audience to sing back to him. He really did have a seriously powerful voice. The show rounded off with We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions and God Save the Queen.

Adam Lambert talked about not being Freddie and what Freddie and Queen meant to him. And Brian May talked about how Adam was a ‘gift from the gods’ for Queen. He is such a showman and an entertainer, he is the perfect person to take Freddie’s place and give a new lease of life to this band which is pretty much universally loved.

The whole thing was truly amazing and stunning and I’m so glad I got to see Queen in action after being a fan for so long.

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